When noise is a weapon

Colin Moynihan, The New York Times, reports that a federal judge has ruled that the sound emitted by a long-range acoustic device (LRAD) used by the New York City Police Department to order protestors onto sidewalks “could be considered a form of force.” LRADs may “resemble heavy-duty speakers of the sort used to make announcements at high school football games,” but they are, in fact, powerful sound cannons. “[D]eveloped in part as a response to a terrorist attack on a Navy destroyer…[the LRAD is] capable of emitting sound bursts loud enough to repel potential attackers.” Moynihan writes that on the night of the protest:

[T}he police used a model called the 100X to emit a series of sharp, piercing beeps directed at people who in some cases were less than 10 feet away. Soon afterward, six of those who were nearby at the time and said they had developed migraines, sinus pain, dizziness, facial pressure and ringing in their ears filed a lawsuit challenging the police’s use of the device.

With this ruling, the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, which asserts that “their 14th Amendment rights had been violated, by an excessive use of force,” can proceed against the city and two members of the Police Department’s Disorder Control Unit. The judge found that the officers used one of the LRADs to order protestors onto the sidewalks, but also “employed the deterrent tone between fifteen to twenty times over a span of three minutes” and “at points the officers used the device within 10 feet of the plaintiffs and angled it toward them.” One of the plaintiffs said that “the sound that night was earsplitting and seemingly without respite,” adding that “[i]t’s like a noise flamethrower.”

The idea that a weapon developed to repel terrorist attacks was used on U.S. citizens who were protesting peacefully–a right guaranteed under the Bill of Rights–is appalling. One hopes that this lawsuit will remove LRADs from all police arsenals, and lead to the general recognition that sound can be a weapon and noise must be controlled.